(51180 mi) Distributor or Vacuum Advance Unit???

Since I had been playing with my carburetor, pulling it off and the on again, I had the opportunity to loosen a lot of tubes running to and from the carburetor.  As I started playing with the distributor, I noticed that the tube from the vacuum control unit to the carburetor was really very loose.  Could the strange acceleration behavior have been caused by poor vacuum advancing on the distributor?  Let's find out what the "Vacuum Control Unit" does! Shall we?

"Under normal road load or part throttle operation, the spark is advanced by the governor in proportion to speed. In addition, sufficient vacuum is created at the vacuum control unit to move the diaphragm and compress the spring in the unit. The arm of the vacuum unit is connected to the breaker point plate which rotates, causing additional spark advance for efficient fuel economy. " (p.225, 1951-52 CHRYSLER SHOP MANUAL)  So, it is entirely possible that part throttle or normal road loads required the vacuum control unit to engage and advance the timing appropriately.  If, however, I were always to put the pedal to the metal after each stop, the car would not have gasped and gurgled on acceleration, since the vacuum advance was not working properly.

In any case, it was a nice thing to clean everything out after the long trip from Illinois and learn a few new things about how my car works.